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Then Clare gives him an impish smile. ‘Do you fancy some dinner? I could make us something at my place. Nothing fancy, just pasta or—’
‘Sounds great,’ says Simon, eager to put off going back to his houseboat and a dinner of beans on toast in front of the telly again. Hurriedly, he drinks down the last of his alcohol-free beer. ‘I’m ready when you are.’
Dinner turns into a nightcap on the sofa, and kissing on the sofa turns into getting naked in Clare’s bedroom. Simon feels self-conscious as she unbuttons his shirt. He’s in okay shape for his age but a far cry from the toned athlete he was back in his glory days. Clare doesn’t seem to mind, though. Sliding her hands into his boxers, she takes him in her hand. He feels himself respond. Kisses her harder.
Hannah’s face appears in his mind’s eye. Pushing it away, he sits down on the bed and pulls Clare down on top of him. He runs his hands over her body. Kisses her skin. But when he opens his eyes and looks up at her it’s Hannah’s face that he sees. It’s as if she’s haunting him. His erection withers in Clare’s hand.
He presses himself harder against Clare. Kisses her again, trying to spark life back into his stubbornly flaccid penis, but it’s no use. All he can see now is Hannah. She’s staring at him with those pale blue eyes of hers, as if to ask him why.
Why, why, why?
He rolls out from under Clare and sits up on the side of the bed with his back to her. This is a bloody nightmare.
‘It’s okay,’ says Clare, moving across the bed towards him. She leans against his back, her hands around his waist. ‘It happens to a lot of guys.’
Simon doesn’t turn to look at her. Can’t bear to see the look on her face. This isn’t who he is, who he should be. Bloody Hannah. She’s been gone thirty years but she still haunts him. Will he ever truly be able to move on?
Stepping off the bed, Clare kneels in front of him and takes hold of his limp penis. She kisses the inside of his thighs as she starts trying to coax his dick back to life. Simon knows it’s a lost cause. As Clare gazes up at him, he’s sure he can see pity in her eyes.
‘Just leave it, will you?’ shouts Simon, standing up and pushing her away.
Clare looks hurt, confused. ‘What’s the matter? I thought we were having fun.’
Grabbing his clothes, Simon quickly pulls them on. ‘It’s not working.’
‘But I—’
‘It’s done, yeah?’ says Simon, shoving his feet into his trainers. He heads towards the door. ‘We’re done.’
Clare starts to reply, but he doesn’t hang about to hear what she has to say. Slamming the door behind him, Simon jogs down the road towards the canal. This is why he never goes on dates. One way or another they always end badly.
Chapter 16
Arriving home from work, Jennie wheels her bike into the hallway and goes through to the kitchen. The smell of mould seems to be getting worse. She assumes there’s a leaking pipe somewhere, but until she’s got the place cleared, it’s hard to get a plumber in to investigate. Dumping her stuff on the table, she moves over to the fridge and extracts a microwave lasagne. She pierces the film lid and sets it to cook.
On top of the pile of things beside the microwave is her old SLR camera. Seeing it reminds her of the half-used film inside it, and how she’d been meaning to get a new developing kit and chemicals. While the microwave meal cooks, Jennie goes online and orders the supplies she needs to develop the film. She has no memory of what’s on it – it was so long ago that she last used the camera – but she’s intrigued to see the pictures. It’s strange, but if she’d found the camera before Hannah’s body was discovered she might not have had the same reaction; she’s spent the last thirty years trying not to remember that time in her life. But now it’s as if the floodgates have opened. Memories of her time with Hannah and the rest of the darkroom crew are pushing their way to the front of her mind whether she wants them to or not. She’s already hurting – the loss of Hannah so much more acute, and final, than it’s been before – so what more harm can a few pictures do?
After eating the distinctly average lasagne and washing it down with a glass of red wine, Jennie rinses out the plastic tray and puts it in the recycling, then girds her loins ready to tackle some more decluttering. The job seems endless, but until it’s done, she can’t do anything with her mum’s old place – renovate it or sell it, whatever she decides once probate has come through. Pouring another glass of red, she heads into the dining room. This is the worst of the downstairs rooms, every inch of the space rammed with piles of her mum’s crap. Newspapers dating back through the years, magazines, bric-a-brac, clothes that she’d bought in the local charity shops but never worn. And bottles. Lots of empty bottles.
She goes through the stuff, sorting it into the three usual piles – bin, recycle and keep. As she works, she thinks about the case, about Hannah. In the last few days, everything she’s believed for the past thirty years has been turned on its head. More and more, it’s looking as if Hannah had been coming to meet her at the bus stop – that her friend didn’t abandon her as she’d believed all these years. Someone stopped her, and Jennie has to know who. But the effort of keeping her personal relationship with Hannah a secret from the rest of the team is taking its toll. Zuri, especially, has picked up that Jennie isn’t her usual self. And she can’t afford to let any of them know the extent of her friendship with Hannah. If the DCI gets wind of it, he’ll have no choice but to pull her off the case, and she can’t have that. She has to find the truth, and fast.
After a couple of hours sorting through her mum’s hoarded belongings, the bin pile is huge and the keep pile non-existent. By ten o’clock Jennie’s had enough, and is ready for a bath and then bed.
Going upstairs, Jennie heads into the bathroom. She turns the taps on to fill the hideous limescale-stained avocado bath, adds some bath salts and then lays the bathmat over the top of the watermarked old grey carpet. The bathroom needs gutting – another job to add to her already long to-do list – but she’s too tired right now to think about it.
Instead, she leaves the bath to fill and walks across the hallway to the magnolia-painted guest room that she’s been sleeping in since she moved into the house. It felt weird to stay in her childhood bedroom, and wrong to sleep in her mum’s room, so this one was her only option. It’s an okay size and she’s already managed to clear most of the clutter out of it. Without turning on the light, she puts her bag on the bed, hangs her suit jacket on the wardrobe handle and moves across to the window, reaching for the curtain.
Jennie freezes, her hand on the fabric.
She stares out of the window. Heart pounding.
Down below, in the shadow of the high hedge and the large acer tree in the corner of the front garden, is a person. Jennie can’t see them clearly, but they’re definitely out there. They’re looking up, watching her.
What the hell …?
With her heart thumping in her chest, Jennie grabs her pepper spray from her bag and hurtles down the stairs. Flinging open the front door, she flicks on the porch light and runs out and down the steps into the front garden.
‘Who’s there? Show yourself.’ She braces for attack, her finger on the pepper spray trigger.
